Boat Profile: Wet Sounds Rat Rod Tige Z3

Wet Sounds is a high performance marine audio manufacturer out of Houston, Texas. Every few years they build a new Tige wakeboard demo boat to be used to showcase the company’s products and every time they put one together they tend to outdo themselves in a big way!

This time around Wet Sounds worked with Tige Boats on their new Z3 23-foot boat. The design process started months in advance to bring a true one-off custom machine to the water. The theme for this build was the Wet Sounds Rat Rod Tige Z3. Rat Rods are a type of hot rod that are built using unique materials and style and are usually left unpainted and have the natural rust and patina show. Wet Sounds is currently building a 1930 Ford Model A rat rod as well. So with the rat rod build already underway, a boat done up in a theme to match was a perfect fit.

The Boat

2013 Tige Z3 with PCM 409 that was custom painted flat black with red catalytic converters and a white cover to match the rest of the boat.

Pro Ballast system with Convex VX surf attachment

All black gel coat

Custom flat black trailer built by Boat Mate Trailers. The Trailer has John Deere Blitz Black paint with 18-inch old school steel wheels in hot rod red and custom 18-inch Nitto tires with one-off white walls.

Alpha Z tower in flat black

All flat black PTMEdge clamping board racks and rearview mirror

Every metal part in the boat was painted or powder coated flat black or flat red. From the through hull vents to the cleats, steering wheel and shifter, dash parts and windshield frame. All of these parts were done ahead of time to be sent to Tige to be installed into the boat on the production line.

Custom interior done by Tige in all matte vinyl using white with black and red accents with a denim texture and black stitching.

Wet Sounds did the stereo installation in house with the help from their friend Corey who works for Mobile Innovations in Katy, Texas. The entire system is all Wet Sounds minus the source units. There is Apple TV and Apple airport express and Arc Audio PS8 DSP processor. The boat has its own wifi network to play audio, stream video to the Tige Touch Screen and control the RGB LED lights off wifi.

Wet Sounds WS-420 SQ built into plexi panel under helm. Source can be hardwired apple iPhone or iPod or switched to the wifi network and play wifi off iPad or any other device. WS-420 SQ is running into the DSP processor. Entire boat is tuned on a laptop.

3 pairs of Wet Sounds SW-650 black with LED tweeters and LED speaker rings

2 pairs of Wet Sounds SW-808 black with LED tweeters and LED speaker rings built into fiberglass pods in seat bases with factory vinyl and billet Wet Sounds shield badges

The stereo planning started long before the boat was even built. Tige was kind enough to let Wet Sounds go to the factory when the boat was just a hull and top deck. They cut out the center walkway of the top deck and fiberglassed the subwoofer enclosure into the actual hull of the boat.

The box is for four Wet Sounds XS-XXX V2 subs. It’s a single box with two chambers and two woofers per chamber with six-inch aero ports side firing. The box is ¾-inch marine grade birch that was resin coated. The front is double layered, so it’s 1.5 inches thick. Another piece was added on top to tie it into the boat and another piece on the back to tie it into the boat, so the top and back are also 1.5 inches. The panels were glassed into the side of the hull connecting the entire enclosure with fiberglass mat, so the sub enclosure is now part of the boat.

As the ports fire out the front only, glass was laid at a curve to create a wave guide for the port. Once the boat was put together, Tige made a center cushion that is the same size as the cooler flip up lid in the walkway. It looks factory and has the same height as it would if there was still a cooler there. A press fit trim panel wrapped in factory vinyl covers the woofers with mesh for the vents. A Wet Sounds AS-10 sub grille is in the center where we cut a hole for more bass to vent when the seat is closed.

Amps

Amps are mounted into the seat bases. Wet Sounds cut CNC templates so the cuts are exact and cut plexi on the CNC machine with a rabbeted edge to press fit from the rear that is glued in; not a visible screw anywhere. The amps are inside amp boxes that hinge down to adjust with built in push-pull fans wrapped in factory carpet. Very little storage was sacrificed. The amp boxes are lit with RGB LED to give an infinity mirror effect. Each amp badge has been changed to RGB.

Tower

Since the last demo boat had four Wet Sounds REV 10’s, a pair of REV 410’s were decided on for this boat. However, the Tige Alpha Z tower is designed for four Rev 8’s or four Rev 10’s. A new Wet Sounds designed billet CNC bracket that attaches to the top location and pushes the REV 410 over for more head room was in order. The final outcome is a perfect match for the REV 410 and this tower. The mounts start out as a solid block of billet and are CNC’d down with the factory tower mount recessed inside to mate to with two mounting wings out the sides for the REV 410 to through bolt to from the inside.

Speakers

They used fiberglass pods in the side seat bolsters with two pairs of Wet Sounds SW-808’s kicked at an angle to bring the sound stage up. They used the factory rear and factory mid (port only) locations for the SW-650’s. They added a speaker behind the driver since the factory speaker is normally under the dash. Factory bow locations were used up front.

Wiring and Power

The center rear seat access door was used as a location for the fuse distribution. The entire floor pivots up for access to the boat, so wire was run up and back so you can still pull the floor up as normal. Three XS Power 3000’s are under each of the outer rear seats to not take up any storage for six XS Power batteries just for the stereo. The Intellipower chargers are installed behind the factory starboard rear access panels. Holes were added in the panel to view the voltage readouts on the chargers.

LED's

There are four zones of LED’s. Control for the LED’s is off the iRule iPhone or iPad app on the wifi network. Wet Sounds wrote a custom graphic interface for the app to be able to control each zone independently, all zones at once, beat to the music, flash and so on.

Wet Sounds would like thank those who really made this build possible…

Rick, Danny, Jean, Eddie G and everyone at Tige Boats. Wet Sounds truly appreciates the help everyone had in helping to get this boat built. They are great people who went way out of their way to let us do some crazy stuff on this boat.

Owen at Boat Mate Trailers for building an awesome trailer. This is the third Boat Mate for Wet Sounds.

And for the team at Wet Sounds, Brett, Corey and Simon, they have all spent a lot of time on this boat.

Check out the Wet Sounds Rat Rod Tige Z3 at the SEMA show in Las Vegas.

The Rat Rod

The car is being built from scratch by Brandon and Dustin at Showtime Metal Works and Tim White, President/Owner of Wet Sounds. The car is a 1930 Ford Model A four-door that has been turned into a two-door. They have welded the back doors in and cut the center pillars out to create a long side window. They’ve got suicide doors for the front and cut the pillars out so it is a small door that opens. They chopped five inches from the top and one inch out of the lower body.

Wet Sounds had a custom one-off frame built by Donnie at West Texas Speed Shop in Amarillo, Texas. Donnie has been great building a truly unique frame. The rear suspension uses an 18-inch Z in the rear of the frame with a triangulated four-link air bag set up so the car will sit on the frame when the air bags are down. It has eight-inch front arms and speed holes through the entire frame. It has a suicide front end set up. The rear end is a narrowed Ford 9-inch. There are disc brakes all the way around.

Since the car is a Ford. It has been kept all Ford. The engine is a Ford 302 with a Weiand high rise intake with dual Holley 450 carbs, which was dyno’d at 500 horsepower. The engine is mated to a green dot Ford C4 transmission built by Columbus Transmission in Texas. The rear tires are old school pie crust cheater slicks with white walls made by Towel City Racing tires. The fronts are old school firestone white wall front runners. They are running 16-inch red steel wheels all the way around.

The interior has two bomber seats and the rest is all hand-fabricated from scratch. The car is still a work in progress to be finished for its official unveiling at the SEMA show in Las Vegas hooked up to the Rat Rod boat. The Rat Rod has a hitch to tow the boat to shows and will really wow the crowds. You can bet that Wet Sounds will be finding a way to squeeze some of their audio gear into the Rat Rod as well.

If you have any questions about the Wet Sounds Rat Rod Tige Z3, Wet Sounds owner Tim White will be happy to answer them for you on our open discussion thread.